One weekend each year in August thousands of people gather in the hamlet of Petropavlovka, Siberia. They have come from all over the former Soviet Union, and from across the world, to hear a sermon by Sergei Torop, who stands before them in flowing red robes and long dark hair. Torop is a former policeman who in 1989 revealed that he was the returned Christ. He leads one of the largest and most remote religious communities on earth. In hamlets across Siberia his name is spoken in hushed, reverent tones, and his image hangs upon walls. And each year the faithful gather to hear his annual sermon and to be baptised in the river running by Petropavlovka.
If Serge Torop is the returned Christ he has come in a manner contrary to that announced by Jesus in the Gospels, where Jesus claimed his return would be open, dramatic, globally accessible and usher in a new era.
Topics: Jesus, Christ, second coming, eschatology, false Christs, Matthew 24:23-31